


drive me, crazy

by K_iddo



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: 1980s, Karate Kid era, Kissing, M/M, Post All Valley, Romance, Teen Romance, cant stop wont stop, more orville peck lyrics for lawrusso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_iddo/pseuds/K_iddo
Summary: It's a Friday evening and Johnny spots Daniel at the side of the road with a broken-down car. He decides to do the nice thing for a change.As soon as he’s alone in the car, Johnny regrets the offer. The two of them have never been in such close quarters alone, they’ve never even had an actual conversation. He’s seen him around school plenty, but it is the first time they’ve been face to face since LaRusso laid him out... and since Johnny fucked up the kid’s leg to the point he’d seen him on crutches for a while following the tournament.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 22
Kudos: 256





	drive me, crazy

_you and me till we died  
_ _so hands on the wheel and let's drive  
_ _buckle up and drive me, crazy_

_~ ~ ~_

The radio has become a distant garble of sound that Johnny isn’t really listening to anymore. He’s drifted off from paying attention within the last five minutes of trying to think of anything else to do but head home, going through the roster of people in his head that he could hang out with:

Bobby: _Busy with girlfriend_  
Tommy: _Grounded by hardass dad_  
Jimmy: _Tutoring math (no one is allowed to know)_  
Dutch: _Dickhead_

God, he hopes Sid isn’t home, hopes he can just have dinner with his mom and crash out. He can’t remember the last time he’s walked over the threshold of his front door without bracing himself for how he’s going to deal with the endless bullshit. Losing the All Valley is his step dad's new favourite button to push, _‘thought you were supposed to be good at that’_ he chuckles and his mom says _‘oh, stop,’_ as if that has ever done anything. He wishes it just bounced off him by now, but he has a feeling the old bastard's not going to be happy until Johnny finally swings for him. 

He blinks hard and snaps himself out of it, focusses on the quiet road ahead. The sun is just starting to go down and it’s only then that he realises how late he had actually left the school gym. There _is_ a burn in his arms, now he notices, and he can innately feel when it’s the bad kind of burn that signifies he’s pushed it a little too far and will be hurting in the morning; he has always found it hard to stop when he’s started something. 

A little further down a long stretch of road in the hills not far from his house, he sees a car pulled in off the side of the road in the dirt, hood up. Normally, he would barely register it, but he would recognise that yellow Ford Super Deluxe anywhere, a car he appreciates from afar but wouldn't be caught dead in. 

So he pulls in after thinking about it for a moment, because usually, his instinct is to just keep going to let people deal with their own shit... But it’s getting dark and the Hills can be dangerous - LaRusso or not, he would feel like a piece of shit for leaving him out here. 

When he gets out of the car, LaRusso, hands covered in motor oil, has his back to him, head down in concentration. Jesus, he's skinny, Johnny can see his shoulder blades through his t-shirt. 

“You got a flashlight or somethin’, pal?” He asks, not looking at him.

“No,” Johnny moves to stand next to him, and Daniel looks up at him in surprise, Johnny pretends not to notice, “yeah it’s too dark, can’t see shit,” he says, not that he could diagnose and fix in the inner workings of a car even if he could see.

“God damn it,” Daniel closes the hood and goes around the side, reaching right in since the top is down, “I don’t know what the hell happened.” He knocks the button of his glovebox with his knuckle and takes out a rag to clean off his hands. The golden hue of the setting sun is enough for Johnny to see the black stains on the front of his white t-shirt and a smudge on his cheek, too.

“You need a ride back to your place to call a tow?” Johnny asks, no stopping himself. LaRusso’s eyebrow quirks.

“ _You?_ You’re gonna give me a ride home?”

Johnny rolls his eyes and heads for his car, “Stay here if you want, LaRusso, I don’t give a shit.” If he can’t even be nice to him without the guy being a dick about it then-

“No, no, thanks,” he says quickly, slinging the rag back in his car, “lemme just put the top on and lock up.”

As soon as he’s alone in the car, Johnny regrets the offer. The two of them have never been in such close quarters alone, they’ve never even had an actual conversation. He’s seen him around school plenty, but it is the first time they’ve been face to face since LaRusso laid him out... and since Johnny fucked up the kid’s leg to the point he’d seen him on crutches for a while following the tournament. 

LaRusso doesn’t seem to be dwelling on the awkwardness of it though when he slides into the passenger seat. He smiles at Johnny properly in a way that shows that slight bit of crookedness in his front teeth. Johnny notices, and he notices himself noticing, and he clears his throat and sets off.

“Buckle up, man, Jesus,” LaRusso admonishes him while he puts on his own seatbelt. 

It takes him a minute to even register what LaRusso is saying. Johnny looks at him, then down at his own chest where his seatbelt isn’t, he hadn’t even noticed, honestly, he barely ever puts it on. Maybe that’s why he automatically does as he’s told, because he’s so surprised that LaRusso remotely cares, and that he's being so chilled out around him. 

“You don’t _wanna_ see me flying through the windshield?” 

“I know we’re not exactly best buds, but no,” he leans back comfortably in his seat and stretches his legs out in front of him as if being in the passenger seat of his car is the most natural place for him to be. It makes sense, Johnny supposes, he did exactly the same thing when he moved here, stretched his legs out, made himself comfortable, acted like he had been here all along. Sometimes it feels like he _has_ been here all along.

Still, it's a little weird to not have him looking his way with either wide-eyed fear or burning determination. 

“You listening to country music, man?” 

Johnny finally tunes his ears into the radio when LaRusso says it and yeah, he is listening to country music and he knows it’s Emmylou Harris because his mom listens to her whenever she's sad enough to lay down on the couch in the living room and drink a bottle of wine. 

“Wasn’t paying attention,” he says.

“No judgement, it’s not so bad,” LaRusso shrugs a shoulder. He seems so relaxed that it makes Johnny realise he’s holding himself tense, shoulders drawn up and hands tight on the steering wheel. Maybe it’s because he’s uncomfortable, maybe it’s that feeling of guilt that’s been creeping in over what they did to him, now he’s had time to think about it away from Cobra Kai and Kreese, being dragged to the forefront of his mind now he's here with him in his Firebird. 

Maybe it’s just that they’re so close he can smell whatever detergent his clothes are washed in and the tinge of motor oil on his shirt. 

Either way, Johnny doesn’t know what to say, he feels awkward and ungainly, just sitting there wondering if the guy next to him totally hates him and is just very good at playing nice. Johnny wouldn’t blame him if he did, not a bit.  
  
“Friday night plans?” LaRusso asks, clearly a little better at making conversation than him. 

“Not tonight,” Johnny tries to relax, following LaRusso's lead, “you?”

“Ma’s makin’ a lasagne so yeah, huge plans,” LaRusso snorts. 

“You’re not going out wi-” Johnny stops himself from saying her name. Fuck. But Daniel knows, it’s obvious by the little raise of the corner of his mouth and the knowing way he side-eyes him. He hopes he just won’t address it - Johnny doesn’t want to know. 

“Ali? Nah, that fizzled out.”

Okay, maybe he does want to know. His heart rate picks up a little at that, he can feel it. 

“Fizzled out?”

“Yeah, man, just didn’t work out, not got much in common,” LaRusso shrugs, casual as all hell. 

Johnny had been doing his best not to pay attention to either one of them, but now he thinks of it, he _hasn’t_ seen them together for the last couple of months. When that sinks in, he doesn’t get the feeling he thought he would. He kind of assumed as soon as LaRusso was out of the way he’d go get her back, or try to, at least. The urge doesn’t come, though... Honestly, had the two of them had that much in common? He feels stupid that question has never occurred to him before.

The image of seeing her kiss LaRusso by the lockers had pretty much tortured him for the last few months, sent molten, angry jealousy through his body, but now, when he pictures Ali standing up on her tiptoes to kiss _him_ like she used to? It’s just not doing it for him like it did once.

Still, for whatever reason, he’s glad she's not with LaRusso anymore. 

Johnny stops thinking about her completely because LaRusso is smiling about something again, “Memories, huh?” 

Johnny registers what he’s looking out of the window at after a moment. That steep hill, almost a cliff he had pushed him down on his bike passes by them. Johnny looks at LaRusso and can tell he’s making a joke of it, he doesn’t look pissed at all, but Johnny feels an uncomfortable twist in his gut. An apology rises in his throat but doesn’t form on his lips, the moment passes and he doesn’t say anything. 

Uncomfortable silence while the country station continues to play, unchanged by either of them, settles in again. What they know about each other doesn’t amount to a lot, so Johnny has no idea what to say to fill the space between them.

“Have you seen Rocky 4 yet?” LaRusso asks out of nowhere. 

“Duh,” Johnny frowns at the implication that he wouldn’t have yet. 

And then, suddenly, talking is really easy. Something new he learns about LaRusso is that he’s kind of a babbler, he goes on and on with Johnny’s less frequent interjections, but Johnny doesn’t mind, because something else he learns is that he’s also kind of funny - he has to bite back properly belly laughing sometimes and remind himself that they are not friends. 

Shit, he likes hearing to him talk so much it almost begins to feel like a problem. He's not sure there's ever been someone he thinks he would be happy to just sit and listen to them talk, just enjoy the tone of their voice and the thickness of their accent no matter what they're harping on about. 

Johnny feels warmth in his neck like LaRusso can hear his thoughts and doesn't look at him at all, as if that will make the telepathic powers he's apparently assuming he has harder to use. 

Another problem arises when they finally arrive back at LaRusso’s apartment in Reseda. Johnny had been chugging water while working out at the gym and he is pretty sure he couldn’t even make it to a quiet alley somewhere before peeing his jeans. 

He rubs the back of his neck when he asks, “Can I use your bathroom?” Embarrassed to have to ask LaRusso for anything, small or not.

“Course,” LaRusso shrugs and gets out, leading him past the pool and up the steps two at a time to his place.

Johnny had kind of figured that his family didn’t have a lot of money from the thrifted look of Daniel's clothes, but the apartment is still a lot smaller than he had pictured, about the size of their reception and dining room, he figures. It’s nice though, cosy and warm in a way his house never is and smelling of cooking food that makes his stomach rumble. There are lots of pictures of the family up on the walls, too, but Johnny is way too concerned with pissing his pants to look at them too closely. 

LaRusso’s mom is in the kitchen, leaning on the island and flipping through a magazine. She looks at him for a second like she’s trying to work out where she knows him from, and Johnny’s cheeks burn under the scrutiny. 

“Johnny just has to use the bathroom, ma,” LaRusso says and it clearly clicks then who he is, “down the hall on the right.” 

Johnny sends an uncomfortable smile to her and nods before finding the bathroom door. He isn’t sure what she knows about him, but she literally had a front-row seat to watch Johnny lay that elbow in LaRusso’s leg he considers that might be enough to get him thoroughly chewed out while he’s here. 

Considering that, he pees quickly and washes his hands, not about to hang around. When he dries his hands on the fluffy pink towel on the rack, he notices a light blue t-shirt that has to be LaRusso’s, it’s small and sleeveless, and the graphic on the front is faded. With his hands dry, he feels the material of it between his thumb and index finger. It’s soft. 

Then he catches himself, wonders what he’s doing, and leaves the bathroom in a hurry. 

LaRusso is gone when he returns to the living room and he panics internally, suddenly stuck alone with his mom who might well want to rip his head off. 

“Thanks for-”

“You staying for dinner, honey?” Well, Mrs LaRusso doesn’t seem to hate him, she smiles at him brightly from where she lays out plates and cutlery on the kitchen table. 

“Uh, thanks but-”

“Mr Miyagi’s gonna tow it back for me, doesn’t trust me with his truck,” LaRusso breezes back into the apartment and beelines straight for his place at the table, “smells great, ma. You want some, Johnny?”

The lasagne _does_ smell amazing when Mrs LaRusso takes the pyrex dish from the oven and brings it to the table. He’s starving and his mom has never been much of a cook, but there’s no way LaRusso actually _wants_ him to - 

“There’s always way too much, c’mon,” LaRusso pulls out a chair for him like it’s nothing and gets to work slicing and buttering the bread on the table. 

“I don’t wanna get in your way,” he protests weakly, torn between how good the food looks and how much eating his food seems totally wrong. 

“Nonsense, sit down,” Mrs LaRusso gets a plate for him and pretty much leaves him no choice, “you want more cheese?”

So suddenly he ends up eating lasagne and crusty white bread with Daniel LaRusso and his mom and he has no idea how that happened, but the food is too good to really care. He notices the absence of his dad but decides not to mention it - if anyone knows that could be a touchy subject, it's him. 

Over dinner, he notices that they have a different relationship than Johnny and his mom do, they joke around more, and Mrs LaRusso just seems kind of… happier than his does, relaxed and easygoing in a way that’s near impossible to be with Sid around. 

“Are you still doing karate?” Mrs LaRusso asks him as he chews a big mouthful of bread. 

He shakes his head so he doesn’t talk with his mouth full and because talking about karate kind of makes his chest hurt. 

“No - I kinda - it - maybe I’ll find a new dojo when I go to college,” he’s annoyed it takes him so long to finish the sentence, embarrassed that he's so upset about it still he can't even string a sentence together. 

“Well if not you could be a football player,” she beams. Johnny smiles a little into his glass of apple juice, he’s heard that before. 

“You’ve never told _me_ I could be a football player, ma,” Daniel says, raising his eyebrow. Johnny laughs, “what’s funny?” He asks like he doesn’t know, playing dumb.

“You’d get snapped in half,” he says.

“Hey, I’m deceptively strong,” Daniel tenses his arm to make them laugh; there’s not a lot of muscle to show, but Johnny remembers how hard he hit all too well, there _is_ a lot of power in those skinny, tan arms. 

Still, Johnny can't help but tease. He loops his thumb and middle finger around Daniel's whole, skinny wrist easily and lifts his arm up.

"This is power," he smirks. 

Daniel looks amused and the smile is enough for Johnny to miss him quickly raising his other hand to bat Johnny's away in a quick move that sends just a little pain up the inside of his forearm. 

"Turns out you're right," Daniel smirks back and _oh god_ the way it makes Johnny feel is too much, especially in front of his mom. It makes him want to take his wrist a little firmer and see if Daniel can do it again, or jump to his feet and spar properly. It makes him want to say fuck karate, let's just wrestle and see who taps out first. Johnny's pretty sure he could get him to the ground, and then-

"Okay, no fighting at the table," Mrs LaRusso chuckles and checks her watch, “Oh damn, I’m going to be late.”

“Where you goin’?” Daniel asks when she gets up and finds her earrings on the counter.

“Drinks with the girls from work - you think you can look after yourself?” 

“Think I can, yeah,” Daniel sits back in his chair and Johnny is struck by the fact that they’re about to be left alone again. The thought makes him nervous, despite how relaxed they’ve been over dinner. Increasingly, he's noticing that _Daniel_ makes him nervous. Jesus, maybe he'd made him nervous from the jump. 

Mrs LaRusso taps Johnny’s shoulder on her way past and kisses her son on the head when she leaves. Johnny realises too late he didn’t thank her for dinner, his mom would be pissed if she knew.

“C’mon,” Daniel nudges his foot with the side of his, “dishes.” 

Johnny stands up, feeling pleasantly full, and gathers up the plates and cutlery and brings them to the kitchen. He washes and Daniel dries since he knows where everything goes.

“Thanks for the ride back man, seriously, I was screwed ‘til you showed up,” Daniel says earnestly when Johnny hands him a washed fork.

He shrugs his shoulders, “It’s fine… Thanks for letting me stay for dinner.” 

“No worries, we usually end up leaving like half of it... not a problem today,” Daniel says just as Johnny scrubs the empty dish the lasagne was in, “where do you put it all? Or does it just get converted straight to muscle?”

Johnny snorts and rolls his eyes. He _had_ eaten a lot of it, but Mrs LaRusso had encouraged him to (not that he'd needed much encouragement).

They carry on quietly; it’s a more comfortable kind of quiet, but Johnny can't just keep ignoring how weird it is to be standing in his apartment doing chores with him. 

“How come you’re being cool with me?” He has to ask, keeping his eyes down to the bubbly water.

“What?” Daniel asks, but Johnny is pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about.

“Come on, we - I - I’ve been kind of a major dick to you,” he says, though even that seems to be undermining it. 

“Well, at least you’re honest with yourself,” Daniel smirks, but Johnny doesn’t want to just laugh it off. 

"Seriously, I’d still want to kick my ass if I was you,” Johnny drains the sink to refill it with clean water, trying not to let the conversation seem as serious as it feels inside. 

Daniel seems to go quiet for a moment, thinking while chewing the inside of his mouth in a way that makes his lips pout. Johnny glances at them and then back at the plate he’s washing.

“After I saw your sensei… after what happened in the parking lot,” The softness of Daniel’s voice doesn’t allay the cold feeling that creeps up Johnny’s spine at the memory of the arm around his neck. He doesn’t finish the sentence, as if he can sense the tension in Johnny at bringing it up, “Well, I think I understood you a little better after that.”

Johnny watches him take a plate from his hand gently, dry it and put it in the cupboard, struck by his words and not really knowing what to say. 

"I mean, obviously I hated your guts and I thought you were a pretty scary guy... but we settled it on the mat right? I don’t hold grudges, Mr Miyagi says it rots you on the inside to hold onto that kind of feeling,” Daniel lightens up a little, clearly not wanting to dwell on the nastiness of the tournament. Johnny thinks ‘rot’ might be about the right word for the kind of vindictiveness Johnny used to feel towards him.

Johnny is tempted to push him further, to ask him how he can even _consider_ being nice to him, though, but he doesn't want to make Daniel remember all the reasons he should hate him because he doesn't _want_ Daniel to hate him. In fact, now, the idea of Daniel hating him makes him sicker than losing half his friends to that goddamn dojo. 

Fuck, and when did he start thinking of him as 'Daniel' and not 'LaRusso?' He doesn't know if he's ever even said 'Daniel' out loud.

"Daniel," he says, as if to test it on his tongue. 

"Yeah?"

Johnny doesn't know.

"Nothin'," he shrugs, embarrassed again. 

A little lost in thought, Johnny moves his hands blindly in the water for something to clean and feels a sharp nick on his finger from the knife he’d forgotten was in there. 

“Ah, shit,” he curses, whipping his hand out of the water instinctively. A little red line, already bleeding, cuts across the pad of his middle finger. 

Daniel approaches him with a worried knit in his brow and takes his wrist in hand to look at his finger; Johnny flushes warm at the touch, almost distracted from the pain. 

“Wait here,” he says, going to the bathroom and coming back with a little first aid kit in hand. 

“Just get a rag or something, it’s fine,” Johnny tries to brush off.

“Don’t be stupid, Johnny,” Daniel opens the box and gets Johnny to face him, holding his wrist again. He uses a clean tea towel to dry his hands for him first, an action that makes his stomach tingle. Daniel's a lot more gentle-handed than he is. 

Then he puts a little antiseptic on a cotton ball and dabs it on the cut. Johnny hisses at the sting, jumping a little. 

“Thought you were supposed to be tough,” Daniel teases, looking up at him. Weirdly, their closeness makes Johnny suddenly very aware of the zit he felt forming on his chin that morning because Daniel’s skin is totally perfect, nothing more than a little mole on his cheek. It’s not the first time Johnny has noticed the way he looks, but it’s the closest he’s been to him while he does. Close enough to smell his clothes again, close enough to wonder what it would be like to lean in and bury his nose in his shoulder and really find out what he smells like. There's still a swipe of dirt on his cheek from where he'd had is head in the car hood. 

“Shut up,” Johnny says, watching him wrap a bandaid around his finger instead of looking at his face and feeling all the things looking at Daniel’s face makes him feel. 

“Hey, I’m patchin’ you up here, don’t be rude to the nurse,” Daniel says, sticking the adhesive to his skin. 

“Gonna kiss it better too?” Shit. It just slipped out. Johnny means it as a joke, but it's a _flirtatious_ joke and he definitely should not be doing that. 

For a second, he has no idea how Daniel will respond, until his dark eyebrow arches and a cheeky, amused smile forms. 

“What if I did?”

Johnny had felt warm all over before, but now he is totally burning, head to toe. He hopes his face isn’t as pink as it feels. 

He knows what he should say _‘I’d lay you out LaRusso.’_ Something like that, something that would cover how giddy and buzzy the idea makes him feel. But he doesn’t, he says:

“Find out,” like a challenge, or a dare, not like a threat, not at all. 

Then he sees colour cross Daniel’s dusky cheeks and a little spark in his big brown eyes that says Johnny isn’t the only one feeling this, whatever this is. He gets that familiar flutter low in his stomach and his feet are firmly planted to the ground even though a distant voice in the back of his head tells him to back off, right now. 

Slim fingers slip around his wrist again, and Daniel holds eye contact when he lifts his hand up to his mouth and kisses the bandaid very gently with full, pink lips that Johnny just has to feel on his own. 

So he does.

His mind is static when he puts an arm around his waist and one in the back of his hair and pulls his body up and against him to kiss him firm and hot. The memory of every time he’s thought about doing this and stamped the thought down until it was dust floods back. He thought he wasn’t supposed to think of him this way, wasn’t supposed to wonder if he closes his eyes when he kisses or if his hair is as soft as it looks, ( _he does and it is_ ). 

But it doesn’t matter. ‘Supposed to’ has no bearing when Daniel’s fingers thread into his hair and blunt nails send gooseflesh spreading over his body. 

Johnny ends up backing him into the counter, not entirely in control of his own body when all the blood in his body rushes south and Daniel pushes his tongue against his, wet and warm, a little half moan, half sigh escaping him at the same time. Or, maybe Johnny had made that noise, he isn't even clear-headed enough to be sure. Everything about it feels and sounds so good that Johnny doesn’t know how he’s possibly going to stop. 

They lock and unlock their lips, and Daniel responds so fast and enthusiastic it’s like he knew Johnny was going to do it. Maybe he has thought about it before, too - the idea that he _has_ almost makes Johnny dizzy. He tightens his arms around him a little just to feel his slim body pressed against his as much as possible - he thinks he could probably pick Daniel up pretty easily if he wanted to, another thought that makes his heartbeat thud in his ears. 

Daniel pulls back first, breathing heavily over Johnny’s lips, eyes a little hazy and hooded. Johnny loosens his hold, giving Daniel the chance to slip out if he wants to. 

He doesn’t though, he stays right there in the circle of his arms, hands resting on Johnny’s biceps. Johnny really, _really_ likes holding him like this, more than he can possibly get his head around. It’s overwhelming, the weight of what just happened and the thoughts rushing through his head - Johnny has absolutely no idea what to say.

Thankfully, again, Daniel does. 

“You wanna stay for the Friday night movie?” He asks, glancing over his shoulder at the TV in the living room, “Think it’s Alien.”

Johnny nods, a smile slipping onto his face as the other boy grins back at him with pink cheeks and slightly swollen lips. 

“Yeah, I’ll stay for a bit," Johnny lifts his hand and swipes off the black mark that's been on his face since he picked him up. Daniel looks at it on the pad of Johnny's thumb and looks at him with unconvincing annoyance. There's something about Daniel standing so close and looking up at him under his long, dark lashes like he does that makes Johnny feel like he would be happy to stand in that kitchen with him until he keeled over. 

"So I had motor oil on my face all night and you didn't say nothin'?"

Johnny shrugs, a little bashful, and doesn't move his hand away from his cheek, "Thought it suited you." 

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr! _bloodyholly.tumblr.com ___


End file.
